Senators Introduce New CRUISE Act to Overrule CDC Order

[hcat]

Not sure where to post this.  The Cruise News thread  also has interesting posts but I am used to the Celebrity thread,

https://www.cruisehive.com/senators-introduce-new-cruise-act-to-overrule-cdc-order/49646

[El Crucero]

22 minutes ago, hcat said:

Not sure where to post this.  The Cruise News thread  also has interesting posts but I am used to the Celebrity thread,

https://www.cruisehive.com/senators-introduce-new-cruise-act-to-overrule-cdc-order/49646

Thanks, but no thanks.  I have more confidence in the CDC for my health than a politician.

[Jeremiah1212]

56 minutes ago, hcat said:

Not sure where to post this.  The Cruise News thread  also has interesting posts but I am used to the Celebrity thread, https://www.cruisehive.com/senators-introduce-new-cruise-act-to-overrule-cdc-order/49646

 

Apparently the senators aren't aware of the current state of affairs. All 4 bulleted items are already underway, and then they punt the authority to who? You guessed it, CDC and HHS. I'm sure the CDC could cancel the CSO, just like the pulled the NSO after the White House got involved. They just gave it a new name and went on with business as planned.

 

Smoke and mirrors....

 

At this point it appears the ports themselves are involved, gov't is meeting with execs, etc. Things will get done quicker if they are left to work this out and keep all of the theatrics away. 

 

[cruisestitch]

Theater .... should be left to the thespians.🎭

[Baron Barracuda]

Florida aside, expect senators are much more focused on maximizing their share of "infrastructure" spending.

[GeorgesGal]

With the experience of the various cruise lines now sailing in Europe without disastrous effects, as well as all other travel options being open including US owned river cruises, I can only think of one reason CDC is still dragging its heels and I don't like my reasoning:  Not a single oceangoing cruise line operating out of US ports is owned by a US company.  Total discrimination in my opinion.  

 

I don't expect to have too many supporters for this theory, though.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by GeorgesGal

[Orator]

Would catch my attention more if Senators and House members representing both parties would have co signed as sponsors. There are many from both parties who have cruise ports in the areas they represent. Seem to be exclusively a Florida thing and I view the move as purely political and don't see it gaining steam. I hope I'm wrong.

[markeb]

24 minutes ago, GeorgesGal said:

With the experience of the various cruise lines now sailing in Europe without disastrous effects, as well as all other travel options being open including US owned river cruises, I can only think of one reason CDC is still dragging its heels and I don't like my reasoning:  Not a single oceangoing cruise line operating out of US ports is owned by a US company.  Total discrimination in my opinion.  

 

I don't expect to have too many supporters for this theory, though.

 

 

Or...

 

They along with multiple other agencies and departments were directed in January to submit plans to the White House COVID coordinator as part of an interagency review process (that's turned up in multiple press statements), that process is going, and major policy announcements will come out of the White House, probably no earlier than 100 days after the Executive Order, which coincides with the first 100 days priorities to distribute and administer vaccines. To be followed by implementing documents from those various agencies and departments...

 

That's actually "normal order".

[Host Jazzbeau]

Politics always involves a huge dose of 'theater.'  The more pressure coming on CDC from the more angles, the better!  (IMnotsoHO)

[grandgeezer]

53 minutes ago, GeorgesGal said:

With the experience of the various cruise lines now sailing in Europe without disastrous effects, as well as all other travel options being open including US owned river cruises, I can only think of one reason CDC is still dragging its heels and I don't like my reasoning:  Not a single oceangoing cruise line operating out of US ports is owned by a US company.  Total discrimination in my opinion.  

 

I don't expect to have too many supporters for this theory, though.

 

Name one oceangoing cruise ship, now sailing, owned by a US company. Also name any oceangoing cruise line owned by a US company. Where's the discrimination??

[GeorgesGal]

1 minute ago, grandgeezer said:

Name one oceangoing cruise ship, now sailing, owned by a US company. Also name any oceangoing cruise line owned by a US company. Where's the discrimination??

My point was this:  all other types of travel, as well as travel related businesses are now OPEN in the US.  The only means of travel not allowed to operate in the US is the oceangoing cruise business, all owned by foreign companies, while many if not most of the other travel industries in the US are US owned.  The two river cruises which ARE permitted to travel in the US are both US corporations not foreign corporations.

[booklady26]

53 minutes ago, GeorgesGal said:

With the experience of the various cruise lines now sailing in Europe without disastrous effects, as well as all other travel options being open including US owned river cruises, I can only think of one reason CDC is still dragging its heels and I don't like my reasoning:  Not a single oceangoing cruise line operating out of US ports is owned by a US company.  Total discrimination in my opinion.  

 

I don't expect to have too many supporters for this theory, though.

 

Actually, I agree with you. If you recall the CARES act passed a year ago was written to exclude cruise lines as it required corporations to be incorporated in the US and have a majority of employees located here. Aside from shoreside operations, which represent a small percentage of their operations, cruise lines pay very little in US taxes, either corporate taxes or payroll taxes. Add to that the environmental violations, highly publicized norovirus outbreaks, passenger injury or deaths caused by either criminal acts (which can't be prosecuted as they occur at sea under no country's jusidiction), passenger neglect or passenger stupidity,  I think politicians have been wanting to punish the industry for a long time and see the pandemic as a good way to do it. 

[grandgeezer]

1 minute ago, GeorgesGal said:

My point was this:  all other types of travel, as well as travel related businesses are now OPEN in the US.  The only means of travel not allowed to operate in the US is the oceangoing cruise business, all owned by foreign companies, while many if not most of the other travel industries in the US are US owned.  The two river cruises which ARE permitted to travel in the US are both US corporations not foreign corporations.

You missed my point, the question was "where's the discrimination"? There is no US owned cruise lines to be discriminated against. All oceangoing cruise lines are being treated equally. Along this point, NCL has a ship, sailing strictly around Hawaii, that is at least flagged in the US and they aren't sailing.

[4774Papa]

5 minutes ago, GeorgesGal said:

My point was this:  all other types of travel, as well as travel related businesses are now OPEN in the US.  The only means of travel not allowed to operate in the US is the oceangoing cruise business, all owned by foreign companies, while many if not most of the other travel industries in the US are US owned.  The two river cruises which ARE permitted to travel in the US are both US corporations not foreign corporations.

Cruising should be allowed by July, considering the pace of vaccinations in the USA.  Require a vaccination or proof that you have had the virus.    We just did a trip from Georgia to Texas by air and airports are showing more passengers.  Our flights were full, however Delta had middle seats blocked unless you were traveling with others.  

[NavyCruiser]

1 hour ago, grandgeezer said:

Name one oceangoing cruise ship, now sailing, owned by a US company. Also name any oceangoing cruise line owned by a US company. Where's the discrimination??

 

US Navy. 

Proudly sailing 365/24/7 since 1775.

Most, if not all, 480 ships never laid up, & continue to sail throughout this pandemic.

Although the food & service sucks...

[nocl]

1 hour ago, GeorgesGal said:

My point was this:  all other types of travel, as well as travel related businesses are now OPEN in the US.  The only means of travel not allowed to operate in the US is the oceangoing cruise business, all owned by foreign companies, while many if not most of the other travel industries in the US are US owned.  The two river cruises which ARE permitted to travel in the US are both US corporations not foreign corporations.

Hate to be the one to tell you but cruise lines are not operating inside of the US.  They are international. 

Also cruise ships are unique when it comes to disease spread.  The Diamond Princess demonstrate an R0  of over 12 for Covid.  Much higher than found in any other setting.

 

If a river cruise company is operating inside the US by law its ships must be US registered.

 

 

[nocl]

1 hour ago, 4774Papa said:

Cruising should be allowed by July, considering the pace of vaccinations in the USA.  Require a vaccination or proof that you have had the virus.    We just did a trip from Georgia to Texas by air and airports are showing more passengers.  Our flights were full, however Delta had middle seats blocked unless you were traveling with others.  

Unfortunately the middle seat blocking ends May 1.

 

A recently released paper shows that blocking the middle seats does significantly reduce risk of infection on an air craft.  Would like to see that requirement be reinstated, at least throughout the summer until case number has dropped substantially.

[grandgeezer]

12 minutes ago, NavyCruiser said:

 

US Navy. 

Proudly sailing 365/24/7 since 1775.

Most, if not all, 480 ships never laid up, & continue to sail throughout this pandemic.

Although the food & service sucks...

What company owns the US Navy?

[tennis]

28 minutes ago, 4774Papa said:

Cruising should be allowed by July, considering the pace of vaccinations in the USA.  Require a vaccination or proof that you have had the virus.    We just did a trip from Georgia to Texas by air and airports are showing more passengers.  Our flights were full, however Delta had middle seats blocked unless you were traveling with others.  

I am glad some senators are pushing the CDC.  I agree cruises should start and anything that gets the CDC moving is welcome.  There is no data to show it is more hazardous than any other form of travel.  (I do think individual countries should be free to ban cruise ships visits because it is within their purview).  I do not believe everyone should be required to have a vaccination.  I have been vaccinated and think the risk is not substantial for someone my age.  There are educated people who understand how the vaccine was created that believe the roll that RNA has in cell expression may pose a risk to younger people because their rate of cell replication is much greater.  It hasn’t been thoroughly studied.  So the risk of the vaccination may be greater for some people than Covid-19 so they shouldn’t be required to have the vaccination.  I am not anti vaccination just think the risks for different populations should be considered.

I am glad for anyone pushing the CDC to do anything to get everything back open.  If you have not noticed the CDC has been wrong on many critical areas related to the virus.  The contagion (insignificant from surfaces or outdoors), death rate (orders of magnitude less than they asserted), hospitalizations (order of magnitude lower than estimated), treatments (don’t use ventilators), use of masks (the only controlled studies show no effect vs no mask mandate). 

[morechances]

2 hours ago, 4774Papa said:

Cruising should be allowed by July, considering the pace of vaccinations in the USA.  Require a vaccination or proof that you have had the virus.    We just did a trip from Georgia to Texas by air and airports are showing more passengers.  Our flights were full, however Delta had middle seats blocked unless you were traveling with others.  

Just because airports are busy, does not mean that it is safe

[tennis]

1 hour ago, nocl said:

Hate to be the one to tell you but cruise lines are not operating inside of the US.  They are international. 

Also cruise ships are unique when it comes to disease spread.  The Diamond Princess demonstrate an R0  of over 12 for Covid.  Much higher than found in any other setting.

 

If a river cruise company is operating inside the US by law its ships must be US registered.

 

 

R0 is the rate of transmission.  The Diamond Princess was the only closed system they could use for estimating the R0 for Covid-19.  The profile of those onboard the ship is not consistent with the profile of the general population so comparing the R0 for the Diamond Princess to the transmission rate for the general population or other forms of transportation is comparing apples and oranges.  Passengers were mainly in their 70’s and almost 50% had an underlying disease.

 

Plus applying that to cruise ships today is another example of comparing apples to oranges.  Cruise ships have changed their ventilation systems, capacity, crew to passenger contacts and passenger to passenger contacts.

[nomad098]

1 hour ago, nocl said:

Unfortunately the middle seat blocking ends May 1.

 

A recently released paper shows that blocking the middle seats does significantly reduce risk of infection on an air craft.  Would like to see that requirement be reinstated, at least throughout the summer until case number has dropped substantially.

 

You mean this one

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7016e1.htm?s_cid=mm7016e1_w

 

A laboratory study of an actual study from 2017 using modelling which did not take into account the wearing of face masks nor did it consider whether passengers are vaccinated against Covid-19 or the other measures put in place by airlines due to the pandemic, it could be right but I'm not convinced.

[Baron Barracuda]

4 hours ago, GeorgesGal said:

With the experience of the various cruise lines now sailing in Europe without disastrous effects, as well as all other travel options being open including US owned river cruises, I can only think of one reason CDC is still dragging its heels and I don't like my reasoning:  Not a single oceangoing cruise line operating out of US ports is owned by a US company.  Total discrimination in my opinion.  

 

I don't expect to have too many supporters for this theory, though.

 

If they were discriminating on the basis of foreign ownership then they'd be banning foreign airlines.  That they're not indicates it's mode of travel they're concerned about, not ownership.

[nocl]

1 minute ago, tennis said:

R0 is the rate of transmission.  The Diamond Princess was the only closed system they could use for estimating the R0 for Covid-19.  The profile of those onboard the ship is not consistent with the profile of the general population so comparing the R0 for the Diamond Princess to the transmission rate for the general population or other forms of transportation is comparing apples and oranges.  Passengers were mainly in their 70’s and almost 50% had an underlying disease.

 

Plus applying that to cruise ships today is another example of comparing apples to oranges.  Cruise ships have changed their ventilation systems, capacity, crew to passenger contacts and passenger to passenger contacts.

Actually R0 is used and calculated for a number of situations,  Though the better the contact tracing the better the data.  They actually do have closed system R0 data from a number of institutions such as prisons, nursing homes, as well as more general situations.  The problem is that cruise ships are among the worst environment that exists for air borne disease spread.

 

From the Japanese analysis of the Diamond most passengers were infected prior to the quarantine. The ones infected after were either crew  (a whole section on the issues with their use of PPE) or those in cabins with passengers that were already infected. The air distribution system did not have anything to do with it. There was no pattern of cases based upon cabin location, which there would be if the problem was with air distribution.

 

While you are talking about demographics keep in mind that most of the passengers on the Diamond were Japanese, and did not suffer from the pre-existing conditions putting people most at risk.

 

So far the most successful method for safe cruising is to be successful in keeping it off of the ship and then run the ship as a bubble (what TUI and MSC is doing) or to run cruises to nowhere from a country with very low levels (Singapore).  On the other even with actions taken during the pandemic the incident on the Hurtigurtin ship shows that once it is on board it spreads rapidly.

[nocl]

6 minutes ago, nomad098 said:

 

You mean this one

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7016e1.htm?s_cid=mm7016e1_w

 

A laboratory study of an actual study from 2017 using modelling which did not take into account the wearing of face masks nor did it consider whether passengers are vaccinated against Covid-19 or the other measures put in place by airlines due to the pandemic, it could be right but I'm not convinced.

As the study says it is 

 

Laboratory Modeling of SARS-CoV-2 Exposure Reduction Through Physically Distanced Seating in Aircraft Cabins Using Bacteriophage Aerosol 

 

As such it is looking at dispersal patterns and shows significant reduction if the distance is expanded.  It is not a clinical trial looking at people actually getting infected (which would be where vaccines come into play)

 

If there was no eating of drinking on the plane and masks were worn throughout the entire flight than it would not matter.  But we all know people do eat, they do drink and consequently do have their masks off for a portion of the flight.

 

When the airlines left the middle seat open you did not have to risk sitting next to someone ignoring or stretching the rules to the maximum allowed.

 

When everyone is vaccinated and case counts are low it will not matter.  Now people are not all vaccinated (some never will be) and case counts are still high.

 

I would prefer that the airlines take one of two approaches  1. either require proof of vaccine or a negative test and fill the middle seat  or 2. leave the middle seat open